Page 7 of Danger Close
Taz just shrugged. I took a deep breath. I wasn’tmad. Not really. I was more surprised and confused. Puzzled.
Why would she not tell her mother? What kind of relationship did they have? What could Teri have done to warrant this?
“Mind telling me why?” I wanted nothing more than to give my kid a five-finger point with my hand flat like a blade as I put on my Drill Sergeant voice anddemandedthat she give me answers.
“Do I mind telling you? No.” She had an amused sparkle in the green eyes she’d inherited from me. “Do Iwantto tell you? Also no.”
“Smart ass.” I groaned. “You get that from your mother.”
Which was a lie. She definitely goteverythingfrom me. Everything but that strange aura—the kind of light that makes everyone in a room drawn to her. It wasn’t about looks. It was about that gravitas that you could feel in the air. Teresa had it. So did our daughter.
“Spill it, kid.” I stood in front of her, looking down, as I crossed my arms in front of my chest. “What gives?”
Her head tilted one way, then another as if she was trying to figure out if she was going to answer me or not.
“I just…” she said in a long sigh. “Mom doesn’t approve of boys–”
“Darlin’, the son of the CIA Director, and undercover operative, is noboy,” I interrupted, shaking my head. “You’re not in high school, sneaking some pimple-faced jock into your bedroom after curfew.”
I hated to say it, but it was true. She was a grown woman, capable of making good choices for herself. I’d seen it with my own eyes.
“I know that!” Her brows knit together, and she looked at me like I was out of my mind.
My heart ached when I thought about our missed years. The pigtails, the ballerina years, the gangly pre-teen, and teen… I hadn’t been there for any of it. I was resigned to that, but now…? I wanted to be so present she’d be pouting for me to get out of her hair.
“But Mama doesn’t,” she sighed again. “She’s never approved of my decisions.”
How the hell do dads deal with this much sighing? Do sons get all sigh-y and mopey too? I couldn’t remember if I’d been a pain in the ass as a teen or not.
“Mom thinks I’m a child, and that I’ll throw my life away for a guy, and…” Again,anothersigh. If I was taking a shot for every sigh, I’d need to get my stomach pumped. “She was right with my ex-husband. She knows that I got divorced, and she won’t let me live it down.”
She licked her lips, her fingers tapping an agitated rhythm on her bicep. “Griff’s different, but she’ll never see that.”
So that’s what it was. She didn’t want her mom to think badly of Griff.
“Darlin’, I’m not saying I don’t sympathize.” God knew, I had been on the receiving end of Teresa’s sharp tongue before. “But if I were your mom, and I didn’t know you were getting married, that would crush me.”
Trinity pouted, then flattened her lips into a hard line. “If I invite her, she won’t come.”
My expression must have told her that I doubted that, because she quickly continued.
“If she does come, she’ll just ruin the whole day.” Again, she looked at my face, and got defensive. “She’ll lecture me and yell at me about how I’m not living up to my potential, and I’m just ruining my life. I just don’t want to deal with that when it’s supposed to be my wedding. And with all the guests...”
Alright, I could get behind that logic.
But still, the gears in my head weren’t satisfied with this solution.
I couldn’t put the image of the woman I’d known all those years ago into thisversion of Teresa.
My wife loved our baby. She swore that she would be a better parent than her own, because her mom was a piece of work thatnever protected her, and her dads—yes, plural. Biological and step—were abusive cock bags. I’d never felt more violent than the day I met them, and I watched her parents crush her. Teresa had wilted under their cruel words.
Theonevow Teresa made when the pregnancy test came back positive was that she would be the best mother. She would love and protect her child. She would do everything for our baby. She recited those words over and over again, as she traced her fingers over her rounding belly.
Teri was a determined woman, so I’d imagined them the last thirty years being thick as thieves. Like that one show with the mother-daughter who lived in a small town.Gilmore Gals? Whatever it was…
I looked at my little girl, and how she’d dyed her hair to a crisp black. Her hair was nut brown like mine–at least it had been before all the grays. Trinity dyed her hair because she liked the color. It was the same shade as her mother’s. That couldn’t have been a coincidence.
I looked at my kid and read her expression: the longing in her eyes, the defensiveness in the tilt of her chin, the way her eyes cut to the side every time she said something that wasn’t the full truth.
